I had just recovered from jet lag when I found myself in the midst of a "halestorm". I returned to America at the beginning of April after living in London for five years and discovered that my old high school physical education teacher, Ms Carla Hale, had been terminated from her post at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio, allegedly because of her sexual orientation.

I was shocked. At the beginning it was no more than a rumor, circulating through Facebook updates asking for prayers for Ms Hale and a link to a petition that had 100 signatures then (the petition now has over 105,000).

I did what anyone in the modern age would do when faced with uncertainty: I Googled Carla Hale, and I found very little as of 16 April. It was just another layoff. The silence of the internet was nearly as deafening as the silence upheld by the Columbus Catholic Diocese over the firing of a teacher who dutifully served one of its schools for 19 years. In some companies two decades years of service results in a gold watch or other gift for loyal service. Not this time.

To top it all off, this sad story begins with an obituary. On February 25, the obituary for Hale's mother was printed in the Columbus Dispatch, which acknowledged Hale's partner in the list of surviving family, "Carla (Julie) Hale". The story, which has been increasingly filled in over the last two weeks, appears to be thus: a high school student asks his or her parents to pray for Ms Hale. The parents find the obituary, are outraged to see a female listed after the beloved teacher's name and send an anonymous letter to the Diocese of Columbus stating their disapproval for allowing a homosexual teacher to educate their child. Shortly after the letter was received, Hale is sacked.

At the time, taking on the Catholic Diocese didn't really occur to me. Nor did the marathon endurance this campaign would come to demand. At that moment, on 16 April, I was worried about the message. How can this happen? How does firing a teacher over who she loves teach teenagers to successfully negotiate their sexuality and, furthermore, their identity? What kind of message does it send to non-LGBT students about diversity? From the school that cited tolerance and acceptance as frequently as dress-code violations, it seemed those attitudes were missing.

I decided something had to be done. We can't tell LGBT teens "it gets better" if there aren't adults willing to make it better. I set up a Facebook group to organize and mobilize action for Ms Hale. On April 16, we were 200 members strong. Two weeks later, and thanks in large part to a Facebook share from George Takei, our group has grown to 4,500 individuals from around the world; #halestormOhio was born. Phone trees, letter writing campaigns, subcommittees, research and peaceful action were developed to ensure that Ms Hale's story remained in the public consciousness.

Since Hale's termination became widely known, the official position of Bishop Watterson High School and the Columbus Catholic Diocese had been silence. However, on 30 April, Bishop Frederick Campbell granted the Columbus Dispatch an exclusive interview to defend the decision to fire Hale on the grounds that "we have to remain steadfast in the teaching of the church". The "quasi-spousal relationship" with a woman that Hale, in Campbell's words, made "public" is in violation of the church's moral teachings.

#halestormOhio's mission is to seek peaceful resolution and justice through the reinstatement of Ms Hale to her previous post and revision of diocesan employment policy in accordance with the Columbus city ordinance. Unlike many places in America, Columbus has a municipal code that cites sexual orientation as a protected status from discrimination. We are fighting for Ms Hale, but we are also fighting for the individuals that this has not yet happened to; who's next?

I cannot, in good consciousness, give up this fight until protective ordinances are implemented across the United States. In just two weeks this issue has gotten bigger than a small town in Ohio; the world is watching. We have the opportunity for meaningful change and a platform to achieve greater equality in the workplace.

For some, this is an issue of freedom of religion. Our response is: discrimination is not a Catholic value. If we're lucky, we will begin a national dialogue to provide all individuals the necessary protections to feel safe in the environment they spend the majority of their lives.